Doing customer research can even help you as a conscious, purpose-driven entrepreneur obtain vital information in order to decide how to develop your business. The types of research you need to perform are:
1. Primary Research
You conduct this type of research to analyze present sales and practices through interviews, questionnaires, surveys, and focus groups of potential clients, from whom you will get feedback.
Some key questions that could be asked are:
- What do you like/ dislike about the current products or services available?
- What parameters do you think about when buying this product or enrolling in this service?
- What are the needs that have been met by the service?
- Which aspects need enhancement?
2. Secondary research
With this type of research, you examine published data. You identify “competitors”, set standards, and spot your target customers, who belong to a specific age group and have a specific lifestyle and habits. Just make sure that the data obtained is not antiquated.
Data Collection
You collect research data with:
a. Quantitative methods to draw statistically important conclusions. If you have a site, you can use your sites’ web analytics to discover where the leads originate from, how long visitors remain on your site, and from which page they usually leave.
b. Qualitative methods, which complement the quantitative methods by helping you to identify problems and learning about customers through interviews. The number of interviewees could be small, but it should be representative of actual customers; so avoid the mistake of asking just your friends and family, because the findings won’t be precise. Ask interviewees about their preferences, desires, and needs.
What You Need to Know
Thanks to research, you discover where and who your customers are as well as when they will probably buy your product/service. Obviously, the more you know about them the better, but it is also important to try to obtain information in an ethical manner. So crucial factors to be considered are their age, buying mentality, behaviour, and routine. After processing this information, you may decide that you want to expand your customer base, which means you need to look for opportunities to penetrate new markets.
Modifying Methods, Products, Services
There may be customers who need your products and services, but these remain unknown to them because your advertising approach is ineffective; or maybe your product does not have the qualities a customer is looking for. Doing proper research will help you determine whether you need to modify your marketing methods and products/services: the appearance, packaging, and delivery methods. This applies to all service-based, conscious entrepreneurs as well. We are good at what we provide, but we also need to be found to be able to serve with our gifts.
Further Development
In addition, you may consider developing extra products or services. Naturally, you need to decide whether it is worth undertaking such an endeavour, which may require the use of extensive resources, time, hard work, and may transform the character of your business. Key issues to be addressed are: What are the prospects of profitability? Do the intended actions for business development correspond to your long-term values as a businesswoman? The initial findings from customer research are the first step to reaching decisions.
Do you have any more questions about doing effective customer research? Get answers at http://goo.gl/Dxb5Ei.
